The Sinclair QL Forum

Well, I know the QL has been around a while, but even I was shocked to see that it has been in use in a 1930s household !!

Actually, I received a bunch of QL stuff, amongst which I have found a QL PSU with a round 2 pin plug made from brown Bakerlite (a type of early plastic) - the plug appears to have a date stamp on it of 1934. No fuse inside the plug and the wires simply push through the two metal pins, which are then pushed down to try and clamp them in place!!

Yes the wires are not that secure!

OK, so I know the QL itself dates from the 1980s, but presumably the house where it was being used had not been re-wired in 40 years or so...

It got me thinking - what's the oldest bit of equipment that has been in practical use with the QL ??

Ah! the good old days, my parents house had three types of round pin socket, 3 pin big mother 16A for electric fires, 2/3 pin of the size in your photograph used for light stands, irons and radios 10A and tiny 3 pin round for table light around 5A I think, maybe smaller. There were no other electrical or electronic home items in those days, then my parents bought a fridge wow cold stuff, maybe a year or two later they could afford a semiautomatic washing machine that had this big red plastic serrated card that you slotted in the machine for the programme you wanted. I blew many a plug (yes plug not fuse) trying to prise it out of an un-switched socket live, none of this isolated lark and finger protected shuttered stuff you have nowadays. I also managed to blow the main fuse for the house several times and electrocuted myself more than I can recall before the age of 16, where I left school to become an electrician. Irony doesn't begin to explain half of it.

Mr_Navigator wrote: and electrocuted myself more than I can recall before the age of 16, where I left school to become an electrician. Irony doesn't begin to explain half of it.

Well: They say you get used to it after you've touched a live wire several times......
Should probably have a sign like this: (Comes from a Chninese lathe I happened to come by)

Well: They say you get used to it after you've touched a live wire several times......

Yep until at work one day, I managed 415V which really did throw me halfway across a room , I was badly shaken up and have the scars to prove it. (any more cliché put here)

What an odd plug to have on a PSU. I wonder if it plugged into an extension and into the light socket

Just a little more advanced than the standard wiring used here in the US today!